Renewing your vows: how it actually works

A vow renewal is a ceremony with no legal weight and no fixed form, which makes it the most freeing event in this whole category and the hardest to find guidance on.

Nothing about it is prescribed. Here is what couples actually do.

What it is not#

It is not a wedding, and treating it as one is the most common mistake. There is no legal element, no licence, no registrar, no witnesses required. Nobody is being given away and nobody is asking a question that has not already been answered.

That means several wedding conventions simply do not apply, and it is worth deliberately dropping them rather than including them out of habit.

When people do it#

• A milestone. Ten, twenty five, fifty years
• After something hard. Illness, distance, a difficult stretch that the two of you came through
• Because the wedding was not the day you wanted. Rushed, tiny, in a registry office, during a period when large gatherings were not possible. This is now one of the most common reasons of all
• Because family were not there. An elopement, a marriage abroad, a wedding somebody could not travel to

That last one is worth saying out loud on the invitation, because it explains the whole event in a single warm sentence.

The shape of the day#

Usually shorter and simpler than a wedding. A ceremony of fifteen or twenty minutes, then a meal or a party.

What happens in the ceremony is entirely yours to decide. The elements couples most often include:

• Somebody to lead it, which can be a friend rather than a celebrant
• New vows, written by each of you, about the years since rather than the years ahead
• Children involved, if you have them, often reading something
• Rings, either the originals or new ones
• A reading chosen by somebody who was at the original wedding

Who to invite#

Smaller than a wedding, almost always. The people who were there the first time, the people who arrived since, and anybody who was missed.

There is no obligation to invite anybody, and no expectation from guests either, which is a genuine freedom. Nobody keeps score at a vow renewal.

Gifts#

Not expected at all, and the invitation should say so clearly, since guests will otherwise assume wedding rules apply.

Absolutely no gifts. We have been accumulating things together for twenty five years and we are running out of shelves.

The invitation#

The main difference from a wedding invitation is that it needs one sentence explaining what the event is, because a proportion of your guests will not have been to one before.

Twenty five years ago we got married with eleven people in the room. On the twelfth of September we are saying it all again, with everybody.

That sentence does the whole job: what it is, why, and what a guest should expect. The full set of wordings is in vow renewal invitation wording.

What to call people#

Not a bridal party, not bridesmaids, not a best man. Most couples simply have the people they want standing near them and do not name the roles at all.

Children are frequently the ones standing up, which is one of the differences that makes a renewal genuinely its own event rather than a repeat.

Dress#

Whatever you like, including the original dress if it still fits and you want to. There is no convention to break.

Guests, though, do need telling, because they have no reference point for how formal this is. Two words on the invitation, and dress code wording covers which two.

Do it for the right reason#

The renewals that land best are the ones with something specific behind them: a year that was hard, a wedding that was not what you wanted, a family that has grown. Guests can feel the difference between an occasion and a party with a theme.

Say the specific thing on the invitation. It is the whole event in one line.